Strong and Sexy (Sky High Air #2)(36)

She could have stuck around Shayne’s longer, maybe found those panties, but she hadn’t wanted him to look into her eyes and discover the truth.

One night hadn’t been enough for her.

She had quite a few conflicting feelings about that. On the one hand, she felt like a woman who’d just had the best sex of her life, and she had.

No fumbling, no clumsy, klutzy, nervous movements for Shayne. Nope, the man had the moves. Great moves.

But on the other hand, she also felt exactly as she’d known she would.

Like they weren’t finished.

Like maybe they couldn’t ever get finished.

And that was the problem, wasn’t it. Shrugging it off, she opened her apartment door. “Hello?” she called, staying in the doorway.

No one answered. Of course no one answered. She lived alone.

“Dani?”

Nearly exiting her own skin, Dani jumped and found Alan standing in his doorway, watching her.

“You okay?” he asked, a worried frown on his face.

She opened her mouth to answer. Of course she was okay, she always showed up at eight in the morning wearing no panties, looking like she’d just had wild sex all night.

But he was looking at her so sweetly, so I-really-want-to-date-you sweetly, that she just shut her mouth and nodded weakly.

His gaze locked in on her neck. “You sure?”

She nodded again, but he kept staring at her neck. “What?”

“Is that a…hickey?”

She slapped a hand to her neck. “What? No. Of course not.”

“Someone bit you.”

Yes. Yes, Shayne had bitten her, lightly, with such heat and suction and perfect use of his tongue that her eyes had rolled back in her head with pleasure. She remembered sliding her fingers into his hair and holding his head to her, encouraging him to keep on kissing her like that.

Perfect. “Maybe it’s a bug bite.”

He sucked his lips inward but didn’t voice the doubt that was all over his face. “Are you just getting home?”

“Yes.” Which looked bad. She’d turned him down for a date, saying she was too busy with her job, and that she was going through a tough time right now, and that a man would complicate things.

But not a single one of those reasons made sense of the fact that yes, she was just getting home, she’d been with a man. She wondered if telling him it’d been a complicated man would help.

Probably not.

Nor would the fact that she’d witnessed an invisible murder, been shot at by an invisible shooter.

Oh, and then there’d been all that wild sex on the floor of Shayne’s living room.

And in his shower…

And in his bed…

“Work’s been a little crazy,” she said weakly. She glanced inside her apartment. No sign of trouble. But still, she couldn’t bring herself to step over the threshold. “Alan?”

“Yeah?”

She looked at him. “Would you like to come in for coffee?”

“Is that just because you want to have coffee, or because you’re nervous about going in alone after the possible break-in?”

Damn it. He was adorably fumbling, yes. But not slow. Not by a long shot. “How do you know about the possible break-in?”

“I heard the police talking.”

Okaaaay. So he’d been eavesdropping last night. That was probably just normal curiosity, right? Because Alan wasn’t some kind of crazy stalker. But just in case, she shut her door and began walking back down the hallway toward the stairs.

Still extremely commando…

“Dani?”

“Going back to work,” she called over her shoulder. Please don’t follow me with a gun.



At the zoo, Dani let herself into her car and grabbed her cell phone, just as Reena drove up.

“Heard you had quite the night.”

“You heard?”

Reena nodded. “You okay?”

Dani sighed and filled her in.

Reena listened in awed silence to the events of the night before, interrupting a few times to either ask a question or to make Dani repeat a detail.

“Tell me about the sex,” she instructed.

Dani blinked. “I saw a murder, had someone break into my apartment, was shot at, and you want to talk about the sex? Are you kidding me?”

“Priorities,” Reena said, utterly unapologetic. “Because you’re okay.”

“Yes.”

“You’re absolutely sure, right?”

Actually, shockingly, after last night, she was more than okay. In fact, she was having some trouble controlling the urge to just grin for no reason. That’s what a few man-made orgasms did for her, apparently. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

“Then yes, I want to talk about the sex.”

“Reena.”

“Come on. Was he good?”

She failed at holding back the stupid grin. Most definitely good. Off-the-charts good. So good her body was revved up and aching for more just thinking about it. “Yes.”

“Nice way to celebrate your promotion.”

Some of Dani’s smile faded at that. “Reena, about that—”

“Look, I’m fine. I’ll get the next one, or someone’s going to have to die, but I’m fine. No biggie.”